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G5 2.0 Ghz Dual will not boot

Hello all. I'm trying this as a last resort. I'm new to Mac, but a fairly proficient user/troubleshooter of Pcs. I've read hours of forrum posts on the subject of troubleshooting a grey screen/won't boot issue, but everything I've tried hasn't worked. I'm hoping you can help.
The problem is, this Power Mac G5 2.0 dual starts up, chimes, goes to a grey screen with the Apple logo and stops. No spinning wheel, nothing. I've tried Option + boot, it gives me the option to boot from different drives, including the OS install disk, biut when I select any of these, I get the same grey screen.
I have reinstalled the OS numerous times on different hard drives, swapping them out to see if that was the problem, but no change. I have the G5 connected to a different Power Mac G4 via firewire target mode. Using this I've repaired permissions, repaired disks, reformatted and re-partitioned 4 different hard drives, but same thing, it won't boot.
Currently the G5 is started in target mode, and I have the G4 booted from the G5's startup disk. The G4 is running fine from the G5's disk.
I also wanted to try the Apple Hardware Test, but unfortunately, I do not have the original disks that came with this Mac.
Any help and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Power Mac G5 2.0 Ghz Dual, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Aug 8, 2010 10:14 AM

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48 replies

Aug 8, 2010 2:11 PM in response to BDAqua

OS is 10.4.6. I did try safe boot a while back, I'll attempt it again in a bit. I just managed to find an Apple Service Diagnostic 2.5.8 cd and am running it now. Hope to find something to tell me what's going on with this thing. Here's a question...when I have the G5 connected to the G4 via firewire and view the HD in disk utility, at the bottom it says "Owners enabled: no" I dfon't know if that has anything to do with it, but all the other ones I'vce seen Have "Owners enabled: Yes" May not even be related, just found it odd.

Aug 8, 2010 4:44 PM in response to BDAqua

AHT finished testing with no errors reported. I'm at a loss. I tried booting from the OS Install disk with the hard drive disconnected. The thing that has me puzzled is that I can boot the G4 from the G5 in target mode, but I can't boot the G5 from the G4 in target mode. Is there a possiblility the logic board firmware got screwed up somehow?

Aug 8, 2010 5:57 PM in response to BDAqua

I couldn't figure out how to post an attachment with this reply so you could see the screenshot I topok with my camera, but I tried to type it out as best I could. 🙂
This is the result of verbose mode:

standard timeslicing quantum is 10000 us
vm pagebootstrap: 634016 free pages
mig table_maxdispl = 70
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved

using 6553 buffer headers and 4096 cluster IO buffer headers
DART enabled

After DART enabled, there is a solid white cursor and that's as far as it goes. I can't do anything with it except turn it off. Any ideas?

Aug 8, 2010 7:39 PM in response to new2mac1971

I couldn't figure out how to post an attachment with this reply so you could see the screenshot I took with my camera, but I tried to type it out as best I could.


To insert images into your post, use the User uploaded file-tag. Note that the image you want to use in your post needs to be hosted online (e.g. on your .Mac website, etc.); you can not upload images to Apple Discussions.
For example...

<img src="/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/120/12065069-1.jpg">

displays the file stored at your specified location.


User uploaded file

displays the file stored at your specified location.

Aug 8, 2010 8:06 PM in response to new2mac1971

Looking at some system log saves, I see that the next lines are dealing with the initializing of the internal and PCI firewire interfaces in my machine. Here is what I am seeing on my most recent boot:


Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost kernel[0]: standard timeslicing quantum is 10000 us
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost memberd[49]: memberd starting up
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost kernel[0]: vm pagebootstrap: 762073 free pages
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost mDNSResponder-108.6 (Jul 19 2007 11: 33:32)[40]: starting
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost kernel[0]: mig table_maxdispl = 70
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost kernel[0]: 105 prelinked modules
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost kernel[0]: Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost kernel[0]: The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost kernel[0]: using 7864 buffer headers and 4096 cluster IO buffer headers
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost kernel[0]: DART enabled
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 PCI now active, GUID 00d0f505 00000000; max speed s800.
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in now active, GUID 000a95ff fe95e028; max speed s800.
Aug 7 18:28:19 localhost kernel[0]: Security auditing service present

Not sure this helps, but it at least shows what comes up next after DART enabled on a similar machine.

G5 2.0 Ghz Dual will not boot

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